Gamespy, Planets, No More

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hal

Dictator
Staff member
Nov 24, 1998
21,409
19
38
54
------->
www.beyondunreal.com
I think everyone saw this one coming with the recent buyout of IGN, but a number of sites are reporting that Gamespy, UGO, and 1Up have all been shut down. A tweet from someone on the UGO staff confirms this is so.

This is the last day for everyone here at UGO. So long, nerds, and thanks for all the fish

Our best wishes go with the departing staff of all the affected sites. It is never fun when someone loses a job.

Collateral damage from the closure includes all of the Planet sites, which had already been in archival state. As most of you know, PlanetUnreal is pretty much the birthplace of BeyondUnreal. Most of the original staff and community more or less made a road trip one evening and ended up right here, forming something similar but altogether better, free of their GamespIGN bonds. So it is with bittersweet emotions that I commemorate this day and I'll leave you with this, taken from our trip to Epic Games HQ way back in 1999:



 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
Epic and Gamespy were both pissed about that photo, for different reasons.

Epic did not like the Quake thing because they were trying to be cool in the middle of the FPS war.

Gamespy was pissed because... the truth hurts. :)
 

Raynor.Z

Ad Nocendum Potentes Sumus
Feb 1, 2006
1,491
7
38
Somewhat sad to see PlanetUnreal go. Last update there was like century ago, but it's still an notional site I guess. :(
 

Sir_Brizz

Administrator
Staff member
Feb 3, 2000
26,020
83
48
What does this mean for UT3?
It seems to be only the websites, but I'd say that all the Unreal game master servers are up in the air right now. This could kill the community in one fell swoop. I guess that's what Epic gets for doing exactly what we all asked them not to do (integrate with Gamespy). :(
 

ambershee

Nimbusfish Rawks
Apr 18, 2006
4,519
7
38
36
Nomad
sheelabs.gamemod.net
It seems to be only the websites, but I'd say that all the Unreal game master servers are up in the air right now. This could kill the community in one fell swoop. I guess that's what Epic gets for doing exactly what we all asked them not to do (integrate with Gamespy). :(

You'll still be able to play UT3 offline / LAN, but not be able to login to it... which means you won't be able to set your player name and such like at all...

Previous UTs should be fine though? The 2k4 master server has nothing to do with Gamespy?
 

dr.flay

Dr.Flay™
Sep 19, 2011
410
10
18
53
Kernow, UK
yourunreal.wordpress.com
am guessing that this means the awful Xbox version of UT3 will be your only option, if that is still connecting.

As pointed out, earlier Unreals will be fine, and UT99 already have a plan-B already running.
The day the UT99 master-server goes off-line, we just swap-over permanently.
http://ubrowser.333networks.com http://333networks.com

The other Unreals need to make sure they are adequately planned for.
The community can look after itself when it works together.

It is kind of more sad, that due to the increasing irrelevance of Gamespy, it will be quickly forgotten.
 

Capt.Toilet

Good news everyone!
Feb 16, 2004
5,826
3
38
41
Ottawa, KS
Good riddance I say. Sad that the planet sites are going, I got my start at PlanetUnreal and had much funsies. Even sadder that the Gamespy service can't take a walk down a bladed corridor. Who cares if it totally decimates what is left of UT3, have to take a few casualties to get rid of the bad egg.
 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
I'll miss Gamespy.

I got my start there with Planetunreal and it was the second "planet" site after Planetquake. I was fortunate enough to work on other planet sites for them until we move everyting to Beyondunreal.

Without them, we would have never had the community around Unreal like we had back then. It was a central location for everything Unreal and nothing but fond memories about it, even the bad stuff. I have a lot of stories I can tell about the behind the scenes stuff and I don't mind sharing it now that Gamespy is gone for good.

Gamespy over the past few years had really become PC based in their news and was one of the few sites to go that direction.

The server browser stuff should be okay, that was all purchased by Glu anyway.
 

Balton

The Beast of Worship
Mar 6, 2001
13,428
118
63
39
Berlin
Without them, we would have never had the community around Unreal like we had back then. It was a central location for everything Unreal and nothing but fond memories about it, even the bad stuff. I have a lot of stories I can tell about the behind the scenes stuff and I don't mind sharing it now that Gamespy is gone for good.

You never came through with the monkey porn so please do share ;)
 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
ha! you know what's funny about that? At one point I had a secret folder on the server with monkey photos. Some of them were... bad.

I had a ton of hidden links on the forums and the main site on Planetunreal that would link to all sorts of things. Nasty photos, MP3's (which got me hate mail from Gamespy directors), odd articles on the internet and much more.

The MP3 link was found, which is was got me in trouble. I was serving it right off the main web site as a direct download link and it was killing bandwidth once they discovered it.

When I flew down to Gamespy and sat in the main working room there was all sorts of chaos. Lowtax was sitting in one area working on things, someone from Fileplanet next to me adding files and descriptions manually and PQ staff working like mad.

Gamespy had it's own internal warez server at the time. A ton of movies and MP3's served to internal staff only. I remember watching an early copy of The Phantom Menace, with incoming special effects, while there. They always denied it but it was a real thing. I am sure it went away.

For the most part, the early days of Planetunreal were pretty good. We had a good relationship with Epic and the staff were fun to work with. Mek (Jack Porter), Mia'Cova, San and Arcane were awesome and accepted me when I came to PU as the "Site Director". It was a silly title really as we all worked together. I spent so many hours working on PU that it actually impacted my family. That's when I knew it was time to hand it off and Gamespy was tired of my shit anyway. QAPete and Hal both deserve a TON of credit for picking things up and running with it and moving us to Beyondunreal.

You have no idea of the sacrifice and sweat those two have put into BU.
 

QAPete

Chief Muckety Muck
Aug 17, 1999
1,329
0
0
62
Pottstown, PA, USA
www.beyondunreal.com
I enjoyed working on PlanetUnreal as Site Director very much. Like Yellow5 says, there were a core group of people there from the early days who were VERY into the community and gaming and doing it right, both at the PU level and GameSpy level. Unfortunately, that turned into a bunch of corporate jackasses who ruined the whole deal by trying to steal user-donated content and call it their own, adding horrible, content-covering interstitial ads and pop-ups, forcing a changeover to their own horrible home-baked forum software, taking control of file sharing (remember the PAID version of FilePlanet? Nobody else does, either...), and otherwise sucking the very soul and life out of all of their sites.

Thankfully, those bad times were short, and we found our way out of there in short order to form BeyondUnreal, doing it the right way in our early years here when we were more needed in the community by offering only a single banner ad at the top of pages, free file sharing, vBulletin forums that everyone was used to using and happy with, and keeping the community focus that USED to be at the front and center of GameSpy and their sites, including PlanetUnreal.

I miss those early days, and am proud to have been a part of them. I'm also proud to have left when I did, and honored to have a number of the PU team follow me here, where we had a great time building this place. Still, it should be said that the core group of people at GameSpy were pretty damned awesome when this was all shiny and new, and I will always have good memories from those days. Except Mark Surfas. He can still kiss my a$$. ;-)

So long, Gamespy, and thanks!
 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
Here ya go..

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Rogan" <frank@exchange.gamespy.com>
To: <yellow5@planetunreal.com>
Cc: "Sal Accardo" <sluggo@exchange.gamespy.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 7:02 PM
Subject: Chop.mp3


> Hey there ... we didn't very much appreciate the "GSI corporate killers"
> image on the PlanetUnreal forums. And maybe we should've told you that
> rather than swapping the image with another without saying anything. ;-)
>
> But we have less appreciation for serving a 2 MB .mp3 file off the same
> link, straight off the webserver. So I moved the .mp3 file, and I'd like to
> ask that we let our little game come to a close.
>
> Whaddya say? Truce?
>
> ;-)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Frank Rogan - frank@gamespy.com
> GameSpy Industries - www.gamespy.com
> 12,000,000 installs, 10,000,000 monthly readers


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Rogan
> To: 'redef@planetunreal.com'
> Cc: Sal Accardo
> Sent: 9/18/01 10:05 PM
> Subject: Red Cross banner
>
> Hey bud, you can take the Red Cross banner down now from the forums, and
> return the regular banner to its normal location. GameSpy only ran its
> public service banners through last weekend.
----
 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
Also.. I was the original "Robert" who always claimed to know what was happening with Unreal Tournament and Epic. Then that account was used by several admins. :)
 

Morety

The Farterator
Feb 23, 2000
12,316
33
48
60
Toronto
www.legionoflions.com
"It's a conspiracy"

Hahaha

I didn't work on the site, but definitely spent a lot of time not working to be on the site. Planetunreal was the first forum I ever visited/posted on, and the community was so amazing, as you can tell from the Classics posts. The early days were great, even the Nerf Arena Blast forum (hahaha keep on defending it Y5!).

I'm sorry to see the site go down, but they certainly put it into the crapper with their management styles. I can't remember the name of the guy who came in as an admin (about a month before we all moved) and was acting like he was our friend when he was nothing short of a turd with ears...I'll have to look it up.

It really says something when I can come here after ten years and still see some of the same friendly faces. And Y5, that was funny stuff, all those hidden links. I remember you tossed one into my avatar at one point.
 

YellowFive

Baconstrips
Aug 7, 2012
43
11
8
Tacoma, Wa
Was it Redef? I actually felt bad for him. He was put into a shitty situation really. We were all steaming mad at GSI and we just told redef to kinda screw off.

Yeah I was always messing with avatars. I think yours would play a fart noise when you clicked on it.

And I will defend Nerf Arena Blast forever. Solid maps and game play even if it was just Nerf guns!
 

Juguard

The King Is Dead, Punk Rock Lives!
Nov 30, 1999
570
0
16
Tustin CA, USA
Visit site
So what exactly does this mean for games using GamespyID and if we forgot our passwords, how do we get them back? I have UT3 set to remember password, but I honestly do not remember what it was. I have an idea, but don't want too risk trying right now....

PS: Some bastard long ago somehow stole my UT3 key and registered it on Steam... I'm not even sure how thats possible. Was there something going around a long time ago that stole keys and I wasn't aware of? I have receipt of my purchase and the box with the key still. What I remember, there was a hard time playing when the game came out, saying someone is already using the key or something like that when trying to log in. Lots of people had problems.